Varela Parotha

Yesterday I took my partner to a used book shop near where I grew up. I ended up buying three cook books the first was Indian Family Cookbook.

I've made a chickpea curry before but really liked how the recipe in this book turned out.

The recipe notes suggested making some Varela Parotha, flaky flatbread to go with it.

It was a straightforward recipe and so fun to make.

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Varela Parotha from Indian Family Cookbook, Simon Daley and Roshan Hirani

To make 8 breads:

• 700g strong white flour

• 2 1/2 teaspoons salt

• 325 ml water

• 50g butter, melted

• oil

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I added the flour and salt together in a bowl and just added water by eye until it formed a firm ball.

I love kneading and really making bread too, so I enjoyed the next step which was to knead the dough until it was smooth.

Then divide the dough into eight and roll each piece into a thin circle. brush some melted butter over and add a light sprinkle of flour.

Roll the circle up into a tight sausage shape, as you would for a Swiss roll. But hold the edges as you go and gently pull them apart to stretch the dough longer. Roll this up into a spiral and push the end into to the centre of the coil.

Finally roll this out again into a flat circle, they're kit ready to fry.

I had some butter left over so I brushed some on top of the flatbreads before frying.

Heat the oil and then add one bread to the pan. Flip it over so its coated with oil on both sides then fry until golden on both sides too.

There you go! The flaky buttery flatbreads are done. I loved these and they didn't take that long to make or to fry. The varela parotha went well with the curry and I was very pleased overall.